


Trackless

by Wrack



Series: Beneath the Ironwood Tree [3]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Folklore, Implied Sexual Content, Innuendo, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 06:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16571681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrack/pseuds/Wrack
Summary: Theydowork well together.





	Trackless

“Gheleon told me a story last night,” Perun said. Her eyes did not leave the sketch map she was working on.

There was a note hovering on the tip of Skorri's tongue. When she bit down, she could taste it; cold, clear, and sweet as a strawberry. Too sweet for the song she had in mind. She let the aftertaste fade away, waited for another. In the meantime, she gave Perun a nudge. _I'm listening_.

“Yeah. This ballad they used to sing in Rezenki, way back when they worshipped him.” The long, dramatic silence that followed gave Skorri time to ponder what a town full of Gheleon's acolytes must have been like. Very quiet, no doubt. Any excuse for a funeral. “It was about a Risen who died the first death underwater, so that's where her Ghost raised her. Only it's all frozen over by then, of course, so she has to wrap herself in heat and try to claw her way through. She drowns a few times, trapped down there in the dark, but she chips away more and more with each rez until she's made a hole big enough for her head.

Now, there's a village not far from the lake – did I mention it was a lake? - and sometimes people come down to the shore for ice fishing. That particular day is so damn cold, only one of them is stubborn enough to step out. His family have been fishers since the Fall, maybe before. He's not expecting any surprises when he settles in for the long wait, which is why he screams aloud when he sees this strange woman's head surface. Well. Gheleon said that was why he screamed, but I think he probably would've even if he didn't come from a thousand generations of fisherfolk.”

The smoky blue rasp of Perun’s speaking voice lulled Skorri. She sank a little deeper into the cushions. “I can't see any Ghost worth her salt reviving someone at the bottom of a lake, never mind where they kicked it.”

“So he's scared, right? He thinks he's found himself a water-maid and soon enough he'll be under the ice with her hands around his throat. After a little while, though, her Ghost pops out to hurry her along. If anything, knowing what she really is frightens him more, but he's a brave young man with a kind heart. He takes her home, sits her down by the fire and helps pick waterweed out of her braid – yeah, they had a whole verse for that - and then they fall in love.”

“Because he pulled a few leaves out of her plait?”

“No, I’m sure they had a lot in common. The lyrics just skip over those parts.”

A dissatisfied hum. “Why's it got to be some kind-hearted fisher-boy, anyway? Why not a girl with fierce eyes and hair that goes all prickly when you ruffle it?”

“So do a rewrite.” Smiling a little, Perun flicked the tip of Skorri's nose. “Make it your own. Give us another song to sing. But hush up and let me finish, so you'll know how it ends.”

Skorri squeezed Perun's arm in apology, and Perun went on. “They want to stay together forever, but she's a Lightbearer. Her nature calls her to the fight. On top of that, his town is ruled by a cruel warlord. This man does... repressive things, the song wasn't too specific in that regard... and everyone in the region hates him. She vows to rout him and see her beloved's people freed. The fisherman knows he can't follow where she's going, so he gives her a farewell embrace and cheers her on her way with the rest of the village. Before she leaves, she makes a second promise: to return to him, no matter what happens.

After a long and difficult journey, she reaches the warlord's fastness. At first, her challenge just makes him laugh. He kills her a thousand different times, in a thousand different ways. Around the hundred and seventeenth, she starts learning. Slowly but surely, she turns the tables. The fight gets fiercer and fiercer, until at last she takes his whole fort out in one massive display of radiance and he runs off into the mountains to lick his wounds. You're actually getting into this, aren't you?”

The cushions had all but swallowed Skorri by now. Extricating herself in order to elbow Perun would require serious effort, so she let her displeasure be known with a huff.

“She goes back to the village for a hero's welcome. What she hasn't taken into account, though, is the passage of time. The battle took place over several decades, but to her, it felt like a few days. Don't look at me like that. I could see it happening to some of us. Almost everyone she knew is dead, but her lover – he's very old by now – still clings to life in hopes of seeing her face once more. He dies in her arms while she and her Ghost weep sparkling immortal tears.”

“Is that all?”

“No.” Perun waited for Skorri to struggle free of the sofa before she spoke again. “She chops his leg off and fashions his femur into a sword, so he'll always be with her. And that's when I understood how Gheleon got to like this tale so much in the first place.”

“Shows a lack of attention to realism,” Skorri said, after a long pause. “Bone's too brittle. You want to go swish-swish-stab, not swish-swish- _crack_!”

With great care, Perun set her pen down next to the map. Then she burst out laughing. Her entire body shook; bracing herself, she planted a hand on each knee. She took a deep, stabilising breath, mouthed _swish-swish_ , and set herself off again. _It wasn't that funny_ , Skorri almost said, but the way Perun's nose scrunched up every time another storm of giggles came over her made those words impossible.

“Skorri, love,” she said, regaining some composure at last, “excuse the inky fingers, but I'm gonna have to kiss you for that. Can't be helped.” She drew her knees up in a deft, economical movement and crawled along the couch. They exchanged a few little shooting-star kisses, quick and bright. The note Skorri had been looking for chose that moment to creep back onto her tongue. It was an insistent teal flavour, but the rose-gold taste of Perun's lips was far more important. Her warm, solid presence made a sharp contrast to the starry void of her Light. Kissing her always felt like standing on the surface of a frozen lake at midnight, holding tight to a partner as you gazed down. The thought made Skorri draw her in closer. Perun's hand moved to cup the side of her face, smudging a wet streak across her cheekbone.

“E sharp!” Skorri exclaimed, right into Perun's mouth. Perun sat back on her heels, features betraying a complete lack of surprise. “Sorry. Gave me an idea.”

There was a look of fond resignation on Perun's face. “What else would I be kissing you for?” Licking her cleanest finger, she rubbed it against Skorri's cheek. After a moment, she gave up. “Now I'm sorry. Fingerprints. All over.”

She took up the pen in an admirably steady hand. Putting E sharp aside with some effort, Skorri sat and watched a boreal forest take shape underneath Perun's fingers. It was as if Perun were outlining her own thoughts, connecting zigs to zags. She knew what she needed to say; had the beginnings of a map, at least.

“Was that whole story a long hint?” Keeping it light had never been a strength of hers, but she did her best. “What would you take from me? Wouldn't be sword materials, I don't think. You'd be after a nice sharp rib-dagger and a few sinews to string your bow with.”

“Not you, too,” Perun said. Her mouth curved up a little, just on the one side. “I don't want your bones. Or any other unattached bits, come to that.”

Stop dancing around it, Skorri thought. Be an arrow. Get straight to the heart of the matter. Arrows. Appropriate. “You're wondering why there's no song for you. Us, I mean.”

There was an almost imperceptible slowing of Perun's pen. That shot had hit its mark. The explanation would fight Skorri every step of the way, but she had to try. It was unthinkable that Perun should attribute her silence on the matter to any other cause – or worse, might have done so already.

“For a start,” she said, “romantic ballads shouldn't be written about real people. Everyone ends up bloody miserable or dead. They're a jinx.”

Perun's lips twitched. If Skorri's gaze had been any less intent, she might not have noticed. “Fair enough.”

“I tried.” 

The ink chose that moment to drip all over Perun's carefully-drawn trees – or maybe she had started, just a little. Grumbling a curse, she made an attempt to blot it with her tunic. One even bigger smudge and a stained sleeve later, she gave up. Skorri reached across her, ready to sacrifice her own cuff to the cause, but Perun made a _stop_ motion with her left hand. “You did?”

Skorri had. She'd sequestered herself away in the garret of Gace's stronghold after storming it at Radegast’s side, emerging only at moments of direst need. For weeks, she'd sat up there, snarling at interruptions and feeding off her own Light. “When you were halfway across the world. Couldn't find the right metre, or the right key. Nothing fit.” No, that was wrong. “Everything fit. I don't know.”

“Skorri Battle-bard,” Perun said, “did you just call me a thief?”

“What?”

“Stealing your whole word-hoard. Pretty serious charge.” Her ability to raise a single eyebrow was one Skorri had always admired. Right now, it was a distraction. As much as she wanted to laugh it off and agree, the tone was all wrong. It wouldn't do for what she had to say, any more than a song would have done. 

“I never run out of words.” She weighed each one with great care before casting it off. Perun, for her part, did not laugh or come back with _You can say that again_. Her Ghost had pitched forward in the air, points drawn in as close as new petals. “I could speak you a thousand poems, if I wanted. I could hang you about with words in dead languages and living ones, old and new, earthbound and extrasolar and everything in between -” Too late, she realised she was veering off course. “Oh! I don't mean to boast.”

“Yes, you do,” Perun said, grinning in earnest now. “But it's all right. When I brag about my tracking skills, it doesn't make me any less brilliant.” _Why haven't you?_ went unspoken. So did Perun's faith that her question would not go unanswered.

“None of them would be good enough,” Skorri said, and hurried on before that could register. She needed to make Perun understand. “But that isn't why I gave up. Language is... you can love it all you like, but you shouldn't expect too much of it. It doesn't really tell anyone anything; all it does is point. When you make a verse, you're waving your hand in the air, pointing and crying _Look at that!_ \- but your listener doesn't have to follow the direction of your finger. They can look where they like and stick their own meaning on whatever they happen to see. And that's well and fine most of the time, but it wouldn't be if I were singing about you. Or about us.” Only at the end of this speech did she realise she had not taken a single breath.

“So,” said Perun, “you don't want to tell about us because you're worried people might get our story wrong? Take the song and turn it into something else you didn't mean?” The grin was back, settling in around the corners of her eyes. “Like when you and Dee went at it over the ending of _In Deepest Winter, In Darkest Night_.”

“I am,” Skorri said, with dignity, “always willing to consider alternate interpretations of a text.” She chose to ignore the wink Perun shot her. 'Alternate interpretation' didn't begin to cover Deidris' ideas on what the Night-poet had meant that final stanza to suggest, after all. She could think of several terms that might, but none of them were the sort Perun would appreciate hearing in relation to her own apprentice. “However, a reading that requires one to deny the obvious – to dismiss each one of the poet's carefully-seeded hints in favour of – of -” The disagreement was still raw. All the passionate fury she'd felt while arguing with Deidris in front of the Great Hall's many amused eyes leapt back up, and she cried, “How did she make it through the entire poem – all seventy verses! - and still believe Talia would choose Afon over Lady Semele?”

“Yeah, you put a pretty good argument forward,” Perun said consolingly. “All that stuff about how when Lady Semele invited Talia to scale the insurmountable mount and win her eternal favour, it was really just a transparent metaphor for -”

“Very transparent,” said Skorri, turning her head away so she wouldn't see the second, even bigger wink. “I'd have tolerated Eun-mi, or maybe even Hazel. But Afon?” Her lip curled, a reflexive response. “All she does is skulk around in the corner and brood. Why would Talia fall for her with Semele right there, girt in armour and shining?”

“Some people like that sort of thing. Dee prefers her stories sweet; she was always going to go for the best friend, not the arrogant arch-rival turned uncertain ally. The last line leaves it pretty open, you've got to admit.” Clearly anticipating Skorri's reaction, she licked her finger and began a tally in the air. “First off: these people aren't real.”

“That's not the point.” The words came out a little too sullen. Magnanimously, Skorri added, “You're getting blots all over the map.”

“It's my new strategy,” Perun said, deadpan. “Drown Lady Nina's holdings in ink. Just wash 'em all away.” She pulled a face at the mess in front of her. “We're real enough to argue it out with the lot of them, and more than that; we're immortal. So are most of our family. Even if some Light-gobbling nightmare catches us on a bad day, there should be one or two somebodies left around to set the record straight.”

At that, Tanwen stirred. The soul of discretion, she had retreated into standby as soon as she'd picked up on her charge's intent to explain. Something Perun said had jarred her. Her Ghost's uneasiness made Skorri uneasy. As much as she despised stock phrases, she was left with, “You never know.”

“Make it a bawdy one, then,” Perun said, folding the stained sketch map up with an air of finality. Without her having to move any closer, all the lines of her body seemed to curve toward Skorri. “Don't leave them room to argue. Here, I'll start you off.”

She parted her lips, which Skorri took as the invitation it was. They changed the subject, and then changed it again; from there, the rhythm went on by itself.

Afterward, they dozed, curled around each other with iambic neatness. Skorri woke first, and put an arm out to keep Perun from rolling off the couch. The jolt shook her out of sleep; she blinked, returning to herself all at once. If the Lords had needed her to lead them, she would have been up, armed and armoured in less than a minute. Nowadays, her hair was cropped far too close to betray her. On the day they'd met, it had stuck out in all directions, prompting Skorri to wonder aloud if she'd just crawled out of bed. _I keep my Light overflow there, Lady Skorri_ , she'd said, not missing a beat. _Means I never run out of charge_. Back then, she'd resembled a Lightless woodswoman more than a reborn scion of the Golden Age. Missing teeth, dry-lipped smirk, a vocabulary fit to turn even Jolder's face redder than her hair – and a voice of surpassing sweetness, when she sang.

“I knew it,” was what Perun said first. Her voice was rough, unsanded by wakefulness. “I knew it couldn't be because you didn't have the words. There's nothing in the world that'll keep you from using that mouth of yours for poetry.”

Skorri scowled. It might have had more impact if she'd still been wearing her formal writing robe, or any clothes at all. “You talk.”

“'Course I do, but just regular old freeform filth. Not in _trochaic tetrameter_.” Her foot brushed against a ticklish spot on Skorri's calf. She stretched, highlighting other points of contact, and tangled a hand in Skorri's curls almost as an afterthought. Not tugging; not quite, not yet. “Maybe that's how we finish the Iron Song, hey?”

E sharp still rang in Skorri's ears, but it seemed willing to wait. It would have to. “Help me find out,” she said instead. And, for a little while, she let the music go.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought it was about time I got around to updating this series, given the amount of Iron Lords fic I still have in the works! Thank you for reading.
> 
> (Also, I take no credit for the oh-so-sneaky Red vs Blue reference.)


End file.
